Sugar Land teen worked as stripper, wanted to be smuggler

Published 12:00 am, Thursday, May 6, 2010

Elisabeth Mandala, 18, a senior at Kempner High School, had been reported missing by her mother last week, Houston police said. Submitted photo

Elisabeth Mandala, 18, a senior at Kempner High School, had been reported missing by her mother last week, Houston police said. Submitted photo

Sugar Land teen worked as stripper, wanted to be smuggler

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

The Sugar Land high school senior found beaten to death in Mexico last weekend wanted to be a coyote who smuggled illegal immigrants across the border and also worked as a stripper, according to her mother's statement to police, a Houston Police Department missing persons report reveals.

Elisabeth Mandala, 18, who attended Kempner High School in the Fort Bend Independent School District, was found dead Saturday along with the bodies of two men on the highway to Monclova, just west of Mina, a town of 6,000 near Monterrey.

The pickup had been staged to look as if it had been involved in an accident, but investigators found evidence the truck's accelerator may have been jammed with a rock, according to the Monterrey newspapers, Milenio and El Norte

“It's pretty apparent she was doing stuff down there she shouldn't have been,” said a law enforcement source close to the investigation who asked not to be identified by name.

Mandala's family has declined to comment on the case or the mother's statement to police, calling the investigation into the teen's slaying “a very sensitive situation.” A phone call to their home went unanswered Wednesday.

Mandala's mother did not contact Houston police to report her daughter was missing until after the teen had already been found dead Saturday in Mexico.

Paula Benitez Mandala, 47, told Houston police her daughter was driving a rental car when the teen left Houston last week because the girl had wrecked her own car. The mother, however, could not provide Houston police a description of the rental car.

Plans were vague

The girl, a U.S. citizen born in Texas, left her mother's home in the 10100 block of Synott Road on April 27 to go meet “somebody” and maybe go to Mexico, according to her mother's statement in the HPD report. The next day, Elisabeth Mandala posted on her Facebook page that she was in Mexico and would be back in Houston the following day. But she did not return.

By noon on Saturday, Paula Mandala had grown worried enough to call Houston police to report her daughter missing. But her daughter's beaten body had already been found six hours earlier on a Mexican highway in a Dodge Dakota pickup with Texas license plates. It was unclear if that was the same vehicle that Elisabeth Mandala had rented before leaving Houston.

Found beaten to death with her were Dante Ruiz Siller, 38, and Luis Angel Estrella Mondragon, both from Mexico City, but described as having local ties. Fingerprints confirmed Mondragon, a taxi driver, had a criminal record, but Mexican police were unable to say what his criminal history included, El Norte reported. One Mexican media outlet reported the two men were brothers.

Mandala's relationship with the two men or how she knew them is unclear.